Prominences are filaments of magnetism filled with glowing-hot plasma. This beautiful prominence rises more than 40,000 km above the stellar surface and stretches more than 20 Earth-diameters from end to end. Such structures are naturally unstable, and this one could collapse at any time.

Coronal holes are places where the sun's magnetic field opens up and allows the solar wind to escape. A stream of solar wind flowing from this particular gap is en route to Earth, due to arrive on July 2nd or 3rd. The impact could spark geomagnetic storms and auroras.